The Long Road To The Above
by Renzin
Summary: Akhtoru is running from a lot of things, merely surviving, always looking behind him, not even aware that he isn't living. Vanesse wants nothing more than to start hers, but a 'minor' fear of heights and being the only resident in a tower within the depths of Taur-im Duinath forest is hindering her. Opportunities arise, and the rest is history. Minor influence from Rapunzel.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own LOTR or the Grimm's fairy tale Rapunzel, only this storyline, my OCs and my artwork.**

Chapter 1

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 _"It was like a scene straight out of Beauty and the Beast. I kept waiting for a teapot to start singing."_

— Jennifer L. Armentrout (Onyx (Lux, #2))

 _"Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."_  
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6))

* * *

Akhtoru sunk his teeth into his kill, relishing the tender flesh running through his teeth and scraping at his blackened gums. His stomach hissed and tugged painfully again, urging him to swallow faster and disregard the luxury of savouring his meal. He was close to moaning at how wonderful the meat tasted. It had been too long since he'd had a large meat sack like this for himself, but then again one didn't always have the good fortune to come across a full grown elk crumpled to the ground with a broken leg, having tumbled down the steep steps of rock beneath it. It was still alive when Akhtoru sniffed it out, and even at the sight of him had started to desperately squirm away with the terrified eyes prey always wore. One crush neck later and the Uruk was once again continuing his trek for a secluded camp for the night. The chances of that in an unfamiliar land 2 nights in a row were slim at best, so when dusk had claimed the day and his hunger could not be ignored any longer, Akhtoru contended himself with squeezing his bulk against the corpse of a rotting away tree, its roots escaping from the earth.

After having his trail picked up by a rouge band of orc hunters as he approached Angmar, (something he hadn't particularly been interested in visiting, but the dark lands were places his kind were always inclined to be drawn to), his only options had been to take an excursion into the homes of the half men, back track in the direction of Rivendell (a nasty place that stank of _golug hai_ even leagues away, that he had barely managed to slip around the first time) or take his chances further north.

Of course, he wouldn't have had that problem at all if he hadn't strayed too close to the villages of the halflings in the first place. He hadn't survived this long by going on random excursions of pure curiosity into open areas of land, and because of his sharp thinking was likely to be one of the few survivors of his race; if he didn't know better, the last of them.

Perhaps he was tired of being cautious, of always living every day in solitude and away from any great forms of danger. Akhtoru had been born into a fiery world, learning to eat, piss and fight all in the space of hours; his kind were pack animals, they slept together, fought together and marched together.

But now here he was, far more than a stone's throw from anyone who wouldn't skewer him on sight.

Though a pathetic one, this was the only reason Akhtoru could think of to explain his change in course. The plan had been to stay in the wilderness, away from the civilisations of man, dwarf, elf and halfling altogether, but then again plans were rarely ever executed perfectly.

When he finally few upon the mouth of the forest, Akhtoru was barely a mile ahead of his hunters. They were more persistent and cunning that he would have thought, seasoned enough to stay down wind so that he had thought they had given up and relaxed his pace. The lapse of defence had almost been the end of him, but by some unforeseen luck Akhtoru had managed to create more distance after a brief skirmish that had lead him to kill one of his pursuers. However now he was running with a thick cut still bleeding down one shoulder and an arrow lodged in his thigh, wedged tightly between muscle and bone.

Uruk kai had an almost endless endurance; Akhtoru and his kind often ran for days with only the briefest of stops, feeling little pain while adrenaline coursed through their black blood, however the throb of his wounds were starting the become more pronounced as he stumbled past the first winding trees. Blood loss was making him dizzy, and while usually he would avoid large congregations of trees with abhorrence in memory of those that had lade waste to Isengard, right now all he could think about was the slim possibility of disappearing into the forest.

When Akhtoru finally halted, he clung onto the coalish bark of one tree, briefly noting how it seemed to be peeling and jagged. He stared at his own hand as it gripped the wood, disgusted by his own fatigue. His head was now pounding, and he could make out the thick iridescent fog that seemed to make him even more sluggish. His eyes stung as if he had stood too close to the smoke of a fire and his face was now slick with sweat and grime.

Panic filled Akhtoru as he felt himself growing heavier. With a last rush of defiance, he broke into an ending sprint, desperate to find clean, free air away from what ever sickness was flooding the place. The tumbling leaves and hooks of thorns scratched at his thick skin, causing him to roar as his wounds were tugged at. At some point the arrow was bent and snapped off, though the head still sat in his thigh. Akhtoru still desperately ran onwards.

It seemed an age later when he almost literally crashed into a distinctly solid stone structure of greyish, mottled granite. Thick rocks and sediment unevenly crafted an unintentional staircase away from the fog that wanted to steal Akhtoru's breath. In a split second decision he flung himself up and scaled the building with his talons. As he reached an impressive height the trees finally released him, granting him the clean open air that blew him awake instantly. He almost wept in relief, drinking in deep breaths as if he had just been diving.

A new sun was burning at the light blue of the sky, a paradox to the freezing air of the higher altitude. Akhtoru hungrily admired it until the pain in his nails reminded him of his precarious position. He looked above to see the top of the tower near where he was, a sturdy balcony proudly hanging only a few feet above him. Not even considering entering the claustrophobic forest again, Akhtoru continued to climb, quickly forcing his well built arms to pull him over the ledge of the balcony and place his clawed feet securely on the stone slabs.

Despite his recent renegade behaviour, Akhtoru remembered to be wary. He crouched low with a hand lingering near his hunting knife as he entered inside. Momentarily, he was stunned. The interior was a large circular room with a tall ceiling of bulking timber beams, several veils of long translucent fabric draping along them and down the walls. A dark wooden stair case was growing around the circumference of the room in a spiral until disappearing in a high landing Akhtoru could fully make out. Endless shelves of books, oddities, papers and even an odd golden contraption that enclosed several circles of glass were snuggly fitted between the steps and pillars, while a thick blue armchair sat alone in the precipice of several layered animal skins and carpets. A light scent of something unknown to him caressed his nose.

However, the strangest sight of all was of a mass of reptilian scales relaxing in the armchair and two narrowing red eyes glaring at him from the unravelling pile. His pointed ears pricked up to catch a noise behind him. Before Akhtoru could unfreeze from that stare he was under, a sharp pain exploded in his skull and everything went black.

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 **There is a _horribly_ low amount of stories about orcs compared to Legolas ****fics, so I thought I would add something of my own.**

 **This has been a story that been bugging me to be written for a good year, and I finally have a plot worked out enough to start. A cross of Grimm's Rapunzel and LOTR, hopefully minimising the mary sue-ness of it all.**

 **Thank you for reading, and please review to tell me what you think :D**

 **Love,**

 **Renzin xo**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own LOTR or the Grimm's fairy tale Rapunzel, only this storyline, my OCs and my artwork.**

Chapter 2

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 _"Sister Mary chose that moment to come in with the tea. Satanist or not, she'd also found a plate and arranged some iced biscuits on it."_

― Neil Gaiman, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

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The only two ways Akhtoru was accustomed to waking up from a slumber was either by the intrusion of some slight noise that would instantly put him on alert, or through the heavy pain of awakening half dead after battle. There was no distinctive in between for Akhtoru, and if one was explained to him it was more than likely he would not be able to grasp such a concept of luxury.

This time was no different. Though less serious that his previous injuries, the grinding throb of his skull was enough to drag Akhtoru's eyes open. The room he couldn't remember being in before was dimmer, yet he had the bad fortune to focus on a flickering candle across the room. The pitiful intensity of light caused him to scrunch up his face and rumble with irritation, though he would never admit that it was more of a whine.

The soft murmurings that surrounded him suddenly cut, and only in their absence did he ever realise that they were there in the first place. His body instantly tensed and his tapered ears flickered, stretching to pick up any more sound.

A low hiss and accompanying grunt were his only warnings yet again before something thick and scaled wound around his throat and there was a whoosh of a projectile. He instinctively rocked sharply to the side, satisfied when the object seemed to bounce off his captor instead. Akhtoru roared as best as he could in the choke hold he was trapped in, violently flinging himself about until the flimsy ropes tying his hands and feet tore against a free talon and he started to claw against the scaled appendage desperately. His eyes bulged as he felt more of his body becoming intertwined and the grip on his neck began to tighten painfully against the straining tendons.

Another figure scrambled onto him and the pile of writhing scales, the light swinging in and out of view as the figure blocked it from his view intermittedly. They raised both arms forebodingly up to the ceiling before yelling a battle cry and bringing down the blunt object down on his head.

* * *

Vanesse stumbled back of the unconscious body, huffing slightly and still brandishing the rolling pin in one hand. It had been covered in residue flour, so that now a lot of the powder lay in the tangled black mane and burgundy temple of her prisoner.

It felt rather odd to think of herself in possession of one. Honestly, _her_? A warden?

But despite the ludicrous notion, fate had decided that of all the towers in Arda, a orc would climb up hers and try to rob the place.

At least, she _thought_ it was an orc. Vanesse would be the last person to be known as an expert on the species, or any really, considering that she hadn't set foot out of this tower in gods knows how long, if ever.

And what else are you supposed to do when an orc has his back turned to you while you happen to be standing next a side table with a rather innocent looking candle stick? Other than _kill_ the orc, that is. But she really didn't want to do that, even if he was unconscious in her favourite armchair. She had no idea how to get blood out of velvet cushions.

At the moment, Deimos was making himself comfortable, trapping every limb of the orc several times in the gorgon's knot of his body. He seemed to be debating whether on not to simple swallow him rather than listen to Vanesse's decision to keep the orc alive. A waste of a good meal, in Deimos's opinion.

Vanesse was brought out of her inner turmoil by a wafting smell through the floor. "Ah, there's ready now." She dismissed the matter of pillaging orcs into Deimos's non-existent hands and trampled down the winding staircase to the lowest floor she could access.

The staircase came to an end on this landing, with no other trap doors or ways of venturing further down the tower that Vanesse had ever managed to find. The majority of this floor was a homely stone kitchen, the only other room being her bathroom in the corner. Vanesse made her way to the oven. A semi circular pit with an open fireplace and spit at the bottom and a wide, thin slit in the stone above, currently covered with a tarred plank of wood. She hurriedly wrapped a damp cloth around one hand, pulled out the plank of wood horizontally by an overhanging notch on its side and gingerly prodded at the glowing mounds within the oven.

Vanesse went back to rummage around a nearby draw before returning with a large flat wooden paddle, and used it to gentle lift out the tray of baked goods. She hummed with approval at their appearance and the heavenly smell that warmed her face, then set them down by an open counter top to let them cool. After pouring water over the merry fire and half heartedly clearing away the newest piles of ash, she briefly paused as she crouched, looking up the blackened chimney, before moving away.

Perhaps when she was younger, Vanesse could have crawled to freedom through the chimney. It was narrow and she had no idea how she would've managed to climb upwards, but it was a wistful fantasy she occasionally had. Unfortunately, Vanesse had shot up quite quickly over the years, and was too big to fit in by the time she realised that the smoke from the fire had to be going _somewhere._

She shook her head to usher away the pessimistic nostalgia and went to rinse her blackened hands in the basin of water on the counter. She caught sight of her reflection and patted water around her face to cool it down a little, before taking the now dirty water and throwing it out the window.

Peering out of it, she reached her left hand to the side to catch hold of a weathered rope that hung on an iron hook by the window. At the end was a study bucket tied tightly and securely. Vanesse lowered it down swiftly, leaning further out to gently guide the bucket down towards a crumbling well at the base of the tower. If she didn't know that it was there, Vanesse would have had quite the trouble trying to drop her bucket in the water. The bucket itself was sealed with a heavy metal rim on the bottom to let it sink into the water so that it could be fully filled.

She grunted with the sudden weight she was supporting, and like a sailor tugging at the rigging, pulled the filled bucket up the height of the tower. She knotted the rope back onto its peg and refilled the basin to the brim once the bucket was yet again empty. There had been a time when she could barely lift the bucket on its own, but now her arms were strong and used to lifting several buckets worth for her baths.

By now the biscuits were cool enough to remove from the tray. Vanesse piled them onto a curved plate and set aside the tray to wash later. She took the plate and a cup of water from the basin before making her way back up again.

As expected, the orc was still in the embrace of Deimos, who seemed content to slumber on top of his new cushion. He briefly flicked his eyes up to Vanesse as she passed, slipping a quivering tongue in and out while she paused to rub the back of his skull.

Vanesse fell down into a smaller wooden chair with leather armrests, placing the cup on the floor and balancing the plate on her lap. The angles of the chair cut into her sides, and she glared with irritation at the orc and snake currently using her favourite armchair.

As she nibbled on a biscuit, Vanesse contemplated her situation. In all honesty she was confused by this orc. At first she had wondered how he had climbed her tower, but then after examining his rather filthy claws with grey dust lodged underneath, she concluded that he must have climbed with his bare hands, which was a feat in itself. Now Vanesse was trying to come up with a reason as to why an orc of all things was the second creature that she could ever remember meeting (Deimos didn't really count). The forest of Taur-im Duinath was supposed to be feared and desolate forest, though perhaps orcs were attracted to that sort of thing.

But then again, she thought she had read that they hated the light and lived in caves in the mountains. What was this one doing here? And how had it found her tower? Vanesse had always assumed that there was some enchantment around the tower to conceal it, considering she only ever got one other visitor.

Vanesse's tongue paused from licking her teeth. She wasn't actually all that certain that her prisoner was an orc. At first he seemed to fit the descriptions of her books and stories, but there were some significant differences. For example, this one had black skin rather than the usual shades of grey or green, and seemed much larger. When he had first climbed into the tower, even in his crouched position, Vanesse judged him to be around 6'5 as opposed to the stereotypical short and hunched forms of orcs. His hair was inky black and was so matted she wasn't sure whether it was meant to be in dread locks or not. The sides were the remnants of stubble, shaping the rest of it into a long Mohawk held by braids that looked more like frayed ropes.

His face was fairly gruesome, as expected really. Vanesse stared with interest at the sharp, hardened planes of the male's face and the faint chips of white warpaint that still clung to the dirt around his ears. The cheek bones were high, the bow heavy set and low, and even in sleep the eyes were strunched tightly into their shadowed sockets. Deep lines from snarling were drawn alon his forehead and from his nose down to his mouth, which was still slightly bared in a sneer. The teeth within were truly fascinating, those of carnivorous predator, serrated and jagged like a wolf's.

She wouldn't have managed to move him to the chair without Deimos, who eventually pitied her attempts enough to help drag him along the floor. He was huge, bulky and covered in a battered set of dark armour that seemed to be on its last legs. On further inspection, he seemed to also be wounded, so Vanesse had reluctantly tugged out several splinters, debris and even an arrow head before wrapping several bandages around his thigh and shoulder to prevent his black tar like blood from ruining her furniture.

It was _not_ a pleasant experience. Quite frankly, this orc-not-orc _stank_. Vanesse had never really been in the presence of anything so unclean, save for a chamber pot, and couldn't imagine any way to accurately describe the detestable odour. She was completely baffled as to how he had managed to get into such a state, but then remembered that orcs were meant to be rather stinky and rotten anyway.

Other than his armour, her prisoner seemed to have some sort of leather vest and several pouches on his person as well. She looked through them, finding several trinkets, a few badly drawn maps and a flint stone before moving onto his knapsack. It had a rather ominous smell coming from it as well, and to her horror, she found several wrapped up slabs of bloody meat. Her investigation into his belongings hastily stopped there.

Vanesse removed what weapons she could find, half awed and horrified at them. There were several daggers wrapped to his person, one short sword with a strange jagged edge that had been hanging by his belt and a longer melee weapon previously strapped to his back. This one was of a similar metal to his armour, thick and straight with a sharp almost perpendicular hook at the end of it. There were ominous scrapes in the metal, indicating that it had been in harsh battle.

After securing the bandage on his thigh, Vanesse became rather aware of how thick and muscular he was. Judging the rest of him, Vanesse took note of how much larger he was in general. From what she could see, every inch of him was muscle to an excessive extent. She wondered if it was painful to move with such a lack of soft tissue on his body. Even his wrists were almost double to size of her own.

For some reason, she felt her face grow rather hot. Horrified at the uncomfortable sensation, she had moved away to let Deimos secure their prisoner.

Vanesse continued to ponder the events of the day, absentmindedly picking up another biscuit. Should she kill him? Vanesse didn't think she had it in her, but then again the easiest option was to let Deimos eat him anyway. His last meal was most likely only some lost rat anyway.

She was rather against that idea however, and not just because of the cleaning up that she would have to do afterwards. The fact of the matter was, this orc-not-orc was the only outsider she had ever met! There were endless things that he could tell her about; what the world was like, about his species, everything outside of this tower!

...That is, if he didn't _eat_ her first.

Every single one of her books agreed on that; orcs were nasty, evil creatures that were not to be trusted. They were monsters, sooner to tear you apart than to have a civilised conversation with you.

But then again, what if her books were _wrong?_

This orc was vastly different from the descriptions she had, and also was dressed as some sort of soldier. Surely if there was some sort of organised military structure within his species, then this orc wouldn't be so barbaric? Perhaps he could be reasoned with.

On the other hand, how-

A muffled groan startled Vanesse out of her thoughts, and she snapped her head up to stare wide eyed at the awakening orc. She watched as Deimos automatically tightened his hold, and the orc's face came to life as he dizzily darted his gaze around and tried to understand what was going on. A look of dawning comprehension appeared, and then he curved his lips back in anger, starting to struggle with rage against Deimos.

However when he caught sight of Vanesse, Akhtoru froze with surprise. His acidic yellow eyes pinned her own blue ones down with such a fearsome glare, she had the irrational urge to jump out of the balcony to escape it.

With a dry swallow, Vanesse's tongue darted around her mouth to clean it before she got up and approached the orc and Deimos slowly. She paused, then after a few moments of conflicted silence, held out a peace offering to him. "Would you like a biscuit?"


End file.
